windowed mode fix (~borderless)

[Ilsyde]

Hey guys,

Some of you have a problem when running Battleforge in windowed mode, as there is no true borderless setting. Therefore if your screen is not capable of displaying a vertical resolution larger than 768 (e.g. 1366x768 or 1024x768) then the bottom of the gameplay area will be chopped off, due to the title bar adding another 27 pixels making the image 795 tall.

I found an application that is able to fix this, by allowing you to reposition the window (therefore hiding the title bar).

1) download this file
2) extract the contents (swru.exe) anywhere
3) run swru.exe
3) start Battleforge Reborn (make sure it's running in a window)
4) select the resizing utility, then find and highlight Battleforge 1.2 retail
5) now you need to play around with either or both x and y coordinates (horizontal and vertical positions)
Try setting y to -27 first, then press <enter> or Set Size in the bottom left corner. This should move the window up, hiding the title bar by placing it outside the display area.
(changing the x coordinate will move the window left or right, in case the edges are cropped and are not fully visible)



credits go to Scott who created this handy tool

[Lord NullPointer]

In the future I will probably add options in the launcher that allows to play borderless windowed and with additional resizing.

[Ultrakool]

Works wonders, Thanks! y=-29 seems to work best for me

Edited October 10, 2015 by Ultrakool

[Ladadoos]

Do I need to run this program before opening BFReborn in windows mode everytime to make it borderless ?

[Ilsyde]

Do I need to run this program before opening BFReborn in windows mode everytime to make it borderless ?

Unfortunately, yes. This tool doesn't manipulate any game data or settings, just repositions running processes that are already in windowed mode.

We need to wait for Pointer's magic to happen before something like this can become a permanent fix.

[Yuuno]

So either i play in window mode which the white bar on top makes it annoying, or play it in fullscreen mode and always get a flickering mess when i try to do something on another screen or i have to install a 3rd party program which i dont wanna do just because of this single game that would need it?

 

Or is there some other way to be able to move from screen to screen without the game minimizing and having that annoying flicker happen?

(and just as a precaution, i dont want any 3rd party program just so i can have a basic functionality)

[Kubik]

1 hour ago, Yuuno said:

basic functionality

Can you explain me, what exactly is basic about it?

1 hour ago, Yuuno said:

i dont want any 3rd party program

Well you install at leas two 3rd party programs to play the game.

[vargata]

12 hours ago, Kubik said:

Can you explain me, what exactly is basic about it?

Well you install at leas two 3rd party programs to play the game.

well, since its generally part of every modern game we can say its pretty basic. as a solution you could just add it to the launcher

- list monitor resolutions
- add 3 options fullscreen borderless fullscreen and windowed, read current settings
- read current resolution settings from config
- in borderless mode preselect current monitor setting otherwise preselect current config settings
- at pressing launch if any settings were changed, save above changes into config
- if borderless was chosen save mode as windowed and
- fetch hwnd for the window, then movewindow to -3 -26 (at least for 1080p these are the border sizes)

about half an hour work at worst and then the players wouldnt have to hack every time they want to play.

i dont know what did you use to write the launcher but here is my old c++ code if it helps, though this is just getting the actual window size and moving it, you could autocalculate the correct positioning from getting the current window width, deducting the selected resolution width and dividing with 2, that gives the x position, then deduct from window height the resolutionheight, deduct the x position that gives the y position. im just lazy to do it lol

if you want i will write the entire code just add it to the launcher 

 

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------

#include <vcl.h>
#pragma hdrstop

#include "Unit1.h"
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
#pragma package(smart_init)
#pragma resource "*.dfm"
TfrmBF *frmBF;
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
__fastcall TfrmBF::TfrmBF(TComponent* Owner)
        : TForm(Owner)
{
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------

#include <vcl.h>
#include <windows.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>

void ShowWindowSize(const char* windowTitle) {
    HWND hwnd = FindWindowA(NULL, windowTitle);
    if (!hwnd) {
        ShowMessage("BattleForge window not found!");
        return;
    }

    RECT rect;
    if (GetWindowRect(hwnd, &rect)) {
        std::ostringstream oss;
        oss << "Window Position: (" << rect.left << ", " << rect.top << ")\n";
        oss << "Window Size: " << (rect.right - rect.left) << " x " << (rect.bottom - rect.top);
        ShowMessage(oss.str().c_str());
    } else {
        ShowMessage("Failed to get window size!");
    }
}

void SetWindowSize(const char* windowTitle) {
    HWND hwnd = FindWindowA(NULL, windowTitle);
    if (!hwnd) {
        ShowMessage("BattleForge window not found!");
        return;
    }

    // Get the monitor the window is currently on
    MONITORINFO mi;
    mi.cbSize = sizeof(MONITORINFO);
    HMONITOR hMonitor = MonitorFromWindow(hwnd, MONITOR_DEFAULTTONEAREST);
    if (GetMonitorInfo(hMonitor, &mi)) {
        int screenWidth = mi.rcMonitor.right - mi.rcMonitor.left;
        int screenHeight = mi.rcMonitor.bottom - mi.rcMonitor.top;

        MoveWindow(hwnd, mi.rcMonitor.left - 3, mi.rcMonitor.top - 26, screenWidth, screenHeight, TRUE);
    } else {
        ShowMessage("Failed to get monitor info!");
    }
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
void __fastcall TfrmBF::btnWinSizeClick(TObject *Sender)
{
    ShowWindowSize("BattleForge 1.2 Retail");
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------
void __fastcall TfrmBF::btnRepoClick(TObject *Sender)
{
    SetWindowSize("BattleForge 1.2 Retail");
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Kubik]

2 minutes ago, vargata said:

then movewindow to -3 -26 (at least for 1080p these are the border sizes)

These numbers are wrong, there is at least 10 settings, that can affect that like text size, text padding, font, window padding, text scaling, desktop scaling, per monitor scaling, window decoration configuration have ton of settings that affect size....
Also just moving the window would show the top bar on the other monitor.

6 minutes ago, vargata said:

about half an hour work at worst

I would bet you can not even find all windows settings that will need to be involved in that time. And how to correctly read them for everything from Windows 7, to all the different versions of Wine, and Proton.

The launcher is written in C#.

Looking window up by title, is terrible idea, because what about all the other windows with same title, and what about the cases, when game opens two windows?

And the code you showed, even if it would work (which I did not test) would cause terrible artifacts, because windows would be re-scaling the image, because the render resolution and displaying resolution would not match.

Can you check my steam library and tell me one game, that does it correctly in your opinion? https://www.lorenzostanco.com/lab/steam/u/XXXKubik I will install it and try it. I am willing to bet, I will find an issue with it, because my multi-monitor setup and settings aren't the most common I guess.

[Yuuno]

Like vargata already said, its a basic functionality as in its usually already a feature in most games. And i do think that i am using an unusual multi-monitor setup as well, but only a game that i have to play in fullscreen messes with that. Yeah its not as if there are no workarounds and i do get that i have to install a 3rd party program to even play the game, but there is no other way around it. But imagine a situation in which you have to install a 3rd party program to use a function like alt+f4 or other stuff that is relative universal in usage.

If i have to think about a game that messes with my screens as skylords reborn does, id'd have to say thats usually old games that did not come with this option, which i do know this game is part of that category, but its not like there is not the possibility of getting a qol update that i do think most people would like to use.

 

But at the end of the day it is your teams call to make, just being all defensive and deflective about it doesnt help the issue.

Edited February 23 by Yuuno

[vargata]

12 hours ago, Kubik said:

These numbers are wrong, there is at least 10 settings, that can affect that like text size, text padding, font, window padding, text scaling, desktop scaling, per monitor scaling, window decoration configuration have ton of settings that affect size....
Also just moving the window would show the top bar on the other monitor.

I would bet you can not even find all windows settings that will need to be involved in that time. And how to correctly read them for everything from Windows 7, to all the different versions of Wine, and Proton.

The launcher is written in C#.

Looking window up by title, is terrible idea, because what about all the other windows with same title, and what about the cases, when game opens two windows?

And the code you showed, even if it would work (which I did not test) would cause terrible artifacts, because windows would be re-scaling the image, because the render resolution and displaying resolution would not match.

Can you check my steam library and tell me one game, that does it correctly in your opinion? https://www.lorenzostanco.com/lab/steam/u/XXXKubik I will install it and try it. I am willing to bet, I will find an issue with it, because my multi-monitor setup and settings aren't the most common I guess.

no, they are not wrong, again, this is for the 1080p settings of battleforge client, im using this code since about 2009-2010 and it works perfectly. if for some reason the game client would not fit this way then it wouldnt fit the screen anyway....

sure, if you have a monitor above the current one would show the titlebar. again who cares as long as the game window fits the actual monitor im playing on? i have 3 monitors and it work like charm

sure, because there are so many other games that has the name Battleforge 1.2 Retail... right? 😄 😄 😄 and you cannot run 2 battleforge clients, unless hacking it lol though its true it could be done nicer through the process id (which you would have as you launch the game from the launcher) but this is PERFECTLY GOOD for this reason

nope, it does not cause any artifacts, the client forces its own settings size so the code does not change any resolutions, it simply changes position. i was able to set a custom resolution in the config to 1914x1051 and then stretch it by removing borders and titlebar, that gives back the 1920x1080 aka 1080p but then the game wrongly stretches the UI and also messes up the mouse coordinates, so i am stuck with the bordered window, i would have to get into the UI code and i just dont care that much. again, it works perfectly with the default 1080p settings but then i even included the code part to query the current window size so you can calulate the exact positioning. none of the windows settings matter

and what about your steam? if you are asking which game has a borderless window ark se is one of those, kcd2 does not even have an exclusive fullscreen lol its borderless window when set to fullscreen. unity3d now defaults to borderless window as well, no exclusive fullscreen, bethesda games also have borderless window mode (at least fallout4 does but i bet the others have it too)

its just excuses. i solved it, it works and i use it every day when i play....

here is the actual app to try, it works with 1080p only for now. again, if you are willing i will even write the code for you lol. if you can change the UI scaling you could create a pixelperfect borderless window mode by the above mentioned resolutionhacking too, the only thing needed is some willingness to work on it

BFr.exe

[Kubik]

9 hours ago, Yuuno said:

id'd have to say thats usually old games that did not come with this option, which i do know this game is part of that category, but its not like there is not the possibility of getting a qol update that i do think most people would like to use.

Well the code base of BattleForge goes back at least to 1994. So by that metric it is quite old game.

And I can not think of single game that would implement borderless fullscreen flawlessly, even for my configuration, and I do not think that 4K primary screen, and 1080p secondary screen above it is something crazily unusual. Reasoning being that any game released before Windows 11 can not implement it correctly for Windows 11 without an update, same for Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, and XP. All 6 of these come with new changes that affect perceived screen space, or what configuration parameters need to be considered, or how to do native window rendering without decorations.

[vargata]

26 minutes ago, Kubik said:

Well the code base of BattleForge goes back at least to 1994. So by that metric it is quite old game.

And I can not think of single game that would implement borderless fullscreen flawlessly, even for my configuration, and I do not think that 4K primary screen, and 1080p secondary screen above it is something crazily unusual. Reasoning being that any game released before Windows 11 can not implement it correctly for Windows 11 without an update, same for Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, and XP. All 6 of these come with new changes that affect perceived screen space, or what configuration parameters need to be considered, or how to do native window rendering without decorations.

omg. none of that matters. battleforge client is simple win32 api standard and behaves so. it worked on my winxp on my win7 and works on my win10 with zero updates. actually now you made me update my little app so anybody wants borderless window on bf just download this app. save it somewhere, start it. you can use it manually from the menu or chose start automatically and then you can forget it (mind that it writes the registry so you might need admin rights depending on your settings). it will start every time you start your windows, automatically detect battleforge and repositions it to the center of your screen that you run the game on. it shows with nice taskbar icons, red if no game is running, blue if game is running but not the active window and green if game is running and is the active window, in this case it locks the mouse to the game window so even borderscroll will work. alt tab will release the mouse back to windows. if you start the app manually and its not on autostart, there will be a visible form that you can also restore from the taskbar icon rightclick menu, if its on autostart it will start minimized so it wont even bother you... have fun (its enough to download the .exe, the rest is there so if you have borland c++ builder 6 you can compile it for yourself) any bugs or glitches let me know
 

https://github.com/vargatam77/Battleforge-borderless-window

 

"And I can not think of single game that would implement borderless fullscreen flawlessly" I even gave you examples of it lol 😄

Edited February 23 by vargata

[Kubik]

5 hours ago, vargata said:

no, they are not wrong, again, this is for the 1080p settings of battleforge client, im using this code since about 2009-2010 and it works perfectly. if for some reason the game client would not fit this way then it wouldnt fit the screen anyway....

Change window's font size, or any other setting that affects the size of the decorations, and you will see that it does not work, even for 1080p. Are you on same Windows version since 2009? Otherwise did you manually reconfigure windows settings to get decorations sizes to be same, or are you missing few rows?

5 hours ago, vargata said:

sure, if you have a monitor above the current one would show the titlebar.

I would care, because I have a monitor there. And same for the -3, if I would have monitor on the left.

5 hours ago, vargata said:

wrongly stretches the UI and also messes up the mouse coordinates,

Never had that issue with any custom resolution, but I am exclusively using the DX9.0c single-threaded renderer for other reasons, so no idea, if that is issue with any other renderer.

5 hours ago, vargata said:

you cannot run 2 battleforge clients

I quite often run 2 clients, but sure my use-case is special.

5 hours ago, vargata said:

and what about your steam? if you are asking which game has a borderless window ark se is one of those, kcd2 does not even have an exclusive fullscreen lol its borderless window when set to fullscreen. unity3d now defaults to borderless window as well, no exclusive fullscreen, bethesda games also have borderless window mode (at least fallout4 does but i bet the others have it too)

I do not have Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, so can not test that. All unity games I can think of was doing ugly overdraw of 1 row of pixels on the other monitor. But maybe they fixed that recently, did not play any Unity game in a while.

 

8 minutes ago, vargata said:

anybody wants borderless window on bf just download this app

That exe does not have all dependencies, so I can not run it. I wanted to try it, to show that it is drawing on other monitors, which I find way worse, that exclusive fullscreen.

[vargata]

1 hour ago, Kubik said:

Change window's font size, or any other setting that affects the size of the decorations, and you will see that it does not work, even for 1080p. Are you on same Windows version since 2009? Otherwise did you manually reconfigure windows settings to get decorations sizes to be same, or are you missing few rows?

It does perfectly work, none of those matters, what matters is the game window that is created by the game itself. Do you even read? i have already said it worked perfectly on winxp win7 and now on my win10 and just tested on my miss's win11 works on that too
 

1 hour ago, Kubik said:

I would care, because I have a monitor there. And same for the -3, if I would have monitor on the left.

well, its obviously a you issue. whatever i have on the other monitor will cover it anyway and its worth the minor inconvenience of "being ugly" 😄 
 

1 hour ago, Kubik said:

Never had that issue with any custom resolution, but I am exclusively using the DX9.0c single-threaded renderer for other reasons, so no idea, if that is issue with any other renderer.

Now you clearly arent reading. Ive said if i create a custom resolution AND remove the titlebar and borders to make it a real borderless window, THEN it will mess up the UI
 

1 hour ago, Kubik said:

I do not have Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, so can not test that. All unity games I can think of was doing ugly overdraw of 1 row of pixels on the other monitor. But maybe they fixed that recently, did not play any Unity game in a while.

but you do or did play ark, its in your library and it also have built in borderless window, but yes, some really have the 1 pixel hanging over to the second screen, which again, nobody cares, its worth the comfort of having a borderless window
 

1 hour ago, Kubik said:

That exe does not have all dependencies, so I can not run it. I wanted to try it, to show that it is drawing on other monitors, which I find way worse, that exclusive fullscreen.

true, apologies, did not change it to release build, now tested on my miss's non-developer win11 pc and it runs, there are no dependencies, this is a simple as hell win32 api application, it only uses standard win32 modules. btw, do you really think all the major gameengines like unity unreal lumberyard and all modern AAA titles include it becuase people dont want it? :D 

Edited February 23 by vargata

[Kubik]

8 hours ago, vargata said:

but you do or did play ark, its in your library and it also have built in borderless window, but yes, some really have the 1 pixel hanging over to the second screen, which again, nobody cares, its worth the comfort of having a borderless window

Well for me it is quite the opposite, I would not trade the comfort of exclusive fullscreen, for even a single pixel on another screen. With exclusive fullscreen I have much easier control what is on the screen.

8 hours ago, vargata said:

btw, do you really think all the major gameengines like unity unreal lumberyard and all modern AAA titles include it becuase people dont want it? :D 

Well as I said, their implementation is terrible, for me the pixels on another screen are way worse than other side effects like other applications being able to easily draw on top.

I hate TAA and other upscalers (yes I consider TAA upscaler) because it looks ugly, and makes things blurry, but most people does not seem to care either.

8 hours ago, vargata said:

Now you clearly arent reading. Ive said if i create a custom resolution AND remove the titlebar and borders to make it a real borderless window, THEN it will mess up the UI

I tried removing the decorations, but there is too many things to change. If we would have the source code, to be able to find all of them, I might have tried it as really hard challenge, but like this there is no way for me to have any confidence I find everything with so many renderers, and unlike you I will not be OK with solution that is wrong, even if 99.99999999999999999% of people would not care about it.

[Metagross31]

Question: Why don't you jut alt+tab out and back in? Works perfectly fine for me.

[vargata]

7 hours ago, Metagross31 said:

Question: Why don't you jut alt+tab out and back in? Works perfectly fine for me.

because it moves the game client to the task bar and cannot see what is happening, in many cases when alt tabbed back into the game it bugs out not allowing multiselect and sometimes even mouse clicks are not working, have to alt tab out and in again to make it work, many monitors badly flicker when changing modes, its just more comfortable and seamless...

9 hours ago, Kubik said:

I tried removing the decorations, but there is too many things to change. If we would have the source code, to be able to find all of them

what decorations? borders and titlebar can be removed with 6 lines of code, from that moment its just a pure borderless gamewindow. the problem is that the d3d renderdevice stretches out the content to the full window size, no matter what, so if there are no borders it increases the game with 6 pixels horizontally and 29 pixels vertically, which would still not be an issue if i could also scale the ui with it...

9 hours ago, Kubik said:

and unlike you I will not be OK with solution that is wrong

are you developing it for yourself or for the playerbase? 😄 

[Kubik]

7 minutes ago, vargata said:

in many cases when alt tabbed back into the game it bugs out not allowing multiselect and sometimes even mouse clicks are not working

18 hours ago, vargata said:

this is a simple as hell win32 api application, it only uses standard win32 modules

Don't you consider these two to be in contradiction to each other?

 

9 minutes ago, vargata said:

what decorations?

The borders, title bar, and rounder corners.

11 minutes ago, vargata said:

the problem is that the d3d renderdevice stretches out the content to the full window size, no matter what, so if there are no borders it increases the game with 6 pixels horizontally and 29 pixels vertically, which would still not be an issue if i could also scale the ui with it...

Ask Microsoft, but I am pretty sure they describe it as a feature of Direct X that render space (view port) is 2x2 from -1,-1 to 1,1 area, that is re-scaled by windows to the window/screen. So everything is scaled, including the UI.

15 minutes ago, vargata said:

are you developing it for yourself or for the playerbase?

Myself of course.

[vargata]

4 minutes ago, Kubik said:

Don't you consider these two to be in contradiction to each other?

there isnt even any connection, one is about my app the other is about the game lol

4 minutes ago, Kubik said:

The borders, title bar, and rounder corners.

yeah, again, those are 6 lines of code to remove

5 minutes ago, Kubik said:

Ask Microsoft, but I am pretty sure they describe it as a feature of Direct X that render space (view port) is 2x2 from -1,-1 to 1,1 area, that is re-scaled by windows to the window/screen. So everything is scaled, including the UI.

the ui does not have anything to do with the directx and its not being scaled with it

6 minutes ago, Kubik said:

Myself of course.

yeah, that just shows how bad of a choice you are for a community development lol. selfish people do not even fit AAA development and it shows nowadays

[Kubik]

23 minutes ago, vargata said:

yeah, that just shows how bad of a choice you are for a community development lol. selfish people do not even fit AAA development and it shows nowadays

So you prefer no game at all? Then I am totally lost why you are complaining.

24 minutes ago, vargata said:

the ui does not have anything to do with the directx and its not being scaled with it

Either we are not talking about same UI, or you have no clue, how Direct X works.

25 minutes ago, vargata said:

there isnt even any connection, one is about my app the other is about the game lol

On that point you are right, my mistake, I have no clue, why I did think that you called BattleForge "simple as hell win32 api application". 😢

[vargata]

24 minutes ago, Kubik said:

So you prefer no game at all? Then I am totally lost why you are complaining.

sure i do, over a bad one just about everybody prefers no game at all. thats why so many are flipping today. when devs like you say "if you dont like it dont buy it" then you get offended when we wont buy it lol. lucky battleforge wasnt developed by you, or nobody would play it

25 minutes ago, Kubik said:

Either we are not talking about same UI, or you have no clue, how Direct X works.

im sure we are talking about the same but it seems like a you issue again as i have clearly shown with code running and doing it successfully while you say you couldnt do it 😄 😄 😄 directx renders the 3d window, it does not render the image overlay like chat market menu etc, those are drawn on top of the 3d render and are handled separately. heck if i change to a nonstandard resolution the UI scales back to the default lowest resolution in my resolution list and is not even following the gamewindows resolution, while if i set a standard one but remove the titlebar, the mousedetection that is bound to the d3d renderer will be off compared to the otherwise correctly scaled ui

[Kubik]

1 minute ago, vargata said:

if you dont like it dont buy it

Are you aware that it is free? 🤣

 

1 minute ago, vargata said:

directx renders the 3d window, it does not render the image overlay like chat market menu etc

It does, maybe you should check the calls to see it. 🤣

[vargata]

1 hour ago, Kubik said:

Are you aware that it is free? 🤣

geeez, i even noted that lucky it wasnt developed by you... thats about the games "thats why so many are flipping today". you know like veilguard and others that were developed by people with your mentality, who were more interested in their own ideas instead of their customers 😄 BF was developed by EA developers who had the mentality of "lets make a game for the gamers" and not for "Myself of course"

but one thing really bothers me: there are 2 options: play windowed, which nearly nobody uses as its ugly and inconvenient, and there is exclusive fullscreen, that is still inconvenient and many would prefer to have a borderless window (this topic has probably the second most view in this group from the player started topics), why is it so bad giving an option? not like it would remove your preferred option... this always bugs me and will never understand it... why is it so against you to give your playerbase a preferred option just because you wouldnt chose it?

"It does, maybe you should check the calls to see it."

no it does not, it goes through directdraw, while its also part of the directx sdk its not the same as the d3drenderdevice that renders the 3d window

Edited February 24 by vargata

[Kubik]

11 hours ago, vargata said:

why is it so bad giving an option?

I did not say it is bad, but too hard, and that is big difference, you like making small problem worse for some, but I do not, so if I have no chance to make it correct I will not make it. I am not going to support something that have so many edge cases on so many supported platforms which include Windows 7, and Wine on Linux an Mac.

11 hours ago, vargata said:

no it does not, it goes through directdraw

Can you give me address from which is it called, and the image it draws? DirectDraw as far as I can tell is used only to enumerate devices.

11 hours ago, vargata said:

thats about the games "thats why so many are flipping today"

I really wonder why you think developers have any say in what will go into the game. That is for designers and higher executives to decide. And we disagree on that point, because I think companies where are developers make games, that they would like to play, and leadership that supports that, because they want to play the game as well consistently produce good games.